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Originally Posted by demonrail666
Another reason why an avant-garde may be harder to locate today centres on the issue of kitsch.
Clement Greenberg describes kitsch as an art form that takes the effect of the avant-garde without taking into consideration the intent behind its original production.
Say a filmmaker in the 1920s rejects the idea of rational comprehension, because he feels that a belief in rationalism led directly to the outrages of WW1. A young ambitious director today can watch the resulting film, but simply say to himself, wow, that looks cool. He then copies the effect (but not the underlying idea) in a video he makes for an indie band, and then gets it played on MTV2. This, unlike the original film, is not avant-garde, but rather an example of kitsch.
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Perfect analogy. And in that case, I also agree that the contemporary filmmaker you utilize as an apt example
is a kitchy artist. And kudos for the Greenberg reference. (as you alone (probably) know), he was instrumental to abstract expressionist painting being accepted.
And from this it follows that postmodernism holds that
all art is kitsch, because postmodernism holds that there is no longer any such thing as the "avant-garde." And while things might certainly seem that way given our contemporary cultural malaise, it just isn't true. Again, postmodernism maintains that there is nothing new under the sun, everything has been done before, and nothing's shocking. The whole philosophy of postmodernism (as opposed to modernism) is merely a case of the lunatics running the asylum and is all a bunch of doublespeak bullshit because the
critics ran out of words to
creatively describe art. The rise of conceptualist art in the late '60s-early '70s threw them for a loop, you see; some called it "neo-dadism" at first. At any rate, Duchamp was crowned in effect by these esoteric snobs as art's last true visionary. And it was decided that everything after Duchamp is merely a kitschy hodgepodge of the art that came beforehand. And while this orientation often holds true, it still doesn't make it an absolute truth. It's really more of a guideline than a gospel.
Lady: We at the network want a dog with attitude. He's edgy, he's "in
your face." You've heard the expression "let's get busy"?
Well, this is a dog who gets "biz-zay!" Consistently and
thoroughly.
Krusty: So he's proactive, huh?
Lady: Oh, God, yes. We're talking about a totally outrageous
paradigm.
Writer: Excuse me, but "proactive" and "paradigm"? Aren't these just
buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important?
[backpedaling] Not that I'm accusing you of anything like that.
[pause] I'm fired, aren't I?
Myers: Oh, yes.
"The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"
Similarly, "postmodernism" is merely a word that stupid people use to make themselves seem more intelligent. That's all, folks!
Furthermore, postmodernism is obviously flawed as a "philosophy" because it maintains that there will never be any more artistic visionaries. This is ludicrous as there are many art
forms ("art" is not only visual arts and painting) where visionary (
i.e., avant-garde) truly forward-thinking work is being accomplished to this day.